A National Diet Library (NDL) delegation visited China from November 4 to 11, 2007 on the 27th mutual visit program between the NDL and the National Library of China (NLC). Since it started in 1981, the program has alternately taken place in Japan and in China every year. This year, in addition to the program, the NLC Forum of World Library Directors was held at the same venue.

For reports of past programs, please see here. For an outline of the programs and reports presented at the programs, please see here.

From left: Interpreter, Dr. Nagao (Librarian of the NDL) and Dr. Zhan (Director of the NLC)

The NLC Forum of World Library Directors is a part of lecture series of the directors of foreign national libraries invited by the NLC. Dr. Makoto Nagao, Librarian of the NDL, attended the forum and gave a presentation titled "Through knowledge we prosper -the development of the digital library."

He recounted the beginning of the digital library in Japan; the outline of the NDL digital library services including services for the Diet, digital library projects, online galleries, and the NDL Web Archiving Project (WARP) (Japanese only), which plays a role in passing on Internet information of value to future generations; and technical issues essential for future digital libraries. He also said that, taking account of the tremendous increase of information, some tasks should be automated by utilizing natural language processing system and information processing techniques, and we should aim at constructing a multimedia digital library. At the end he stressed the importance of cooperative relationships between the nations in a cultural sphere of the Chinese character, that is, China, Korea and Japan.

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Headed by Mr. Mikio Wanaka, Director General, Kansai-kan of the NDL, the delegation consisted of the following four other members: Mr. Kazuyuki Yamaguchi, Director of the Planning Division, Mr. Hiroshi Kato, Director of the Business, Science and Technology Division, Mr. Takehiko Sato, Director of the Digital Library Division, and Mr. Naotoshi Maeda, Asian Resources Division (interpreter).

The theme of the 2007 program was "Digital Library."

During the program, six speakers introduced each library's recent activities. The NLC and the NDL have shared so many issues that both sides had a lively exchange of views on this theme.

At the keynote speech, Mr. Wanaka introduced the history of development of the internal system and plans for providing digital library services in the NDL, ongoing construction of the digital archiving system and related issues, and the Digital Archive Portal (PORTA) opened in October 2007. Dr. Chen presented the current situation of the NLC, an outline of the National Digital Library of China to be completed within 2008, digitized resources, electronic journals introduced in the NLC and so on.

At the section meeting, Mr. Yamaguchi introduced the Integrated Library System of the NDL, which controls present library services and carries more than 16 million bibliographic data, and its future tasks, especially the NDL System Optimization Plan. Mr. Sato’s presentation was focused on the Digital Archiving System and the NDL Digital Archive Portal (PORTA), a navigation system to digital information in Japan. Present issues include metadata elements, rules of metadata description, standardization of communication protocol and extension of the search range.

From the NLC, Mr. Wei gave an explanation of the National Digital Library of China, including the objectives, systemic framework for realization, and services after construction. The NLC places an emphasis on construction of a large scale Chinese digital archive, seamless transmission of digital information and provision of an advanced reading environment for on-site users. Then Mr. Li’s report introduced the system design, system structure, data management and preservation of the Digital Newspapers Repository Project (DiNeR) started in 2005. The NCL has received digital data from publishers as well as collected newspapers in the PDF format.

In the latter part of the program, the delegation visited the Peking University Library, the Capital Library of China, the Tsinghua University Library, Tsinghua Tongfang Co. LTD, and the National Science Library, where they learned the current situation of library services and digital resources in China.

In addition, they discussed a cooperative relationship among China, Korea and Japan, and agreed to hold a tripartite meeting in October 2008 in Tokyo, when the NDL hosts the 16th Conference of Directors of National Libraries of Asia and Oceania (CDNLAO).

More details of this program will be published in NDL Monthly Bulletin no. 563, February 2008 (in Japanese).

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